


spiritus

by Luzula



Category: tag wrangler rpf
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Gen, Ghosts, wrangulatorverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ghost in the machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spiritus

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [forma](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18380) by [general_jinjur (jinjurly)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinjurly/pseuds/general_jinjur). 



> Inspired by a recent discussion on the tag wrangler mailing list.

The Wrangulator has grown.

She was large before, but now her shadow on the land beneath is immense, full of strange shapes and protuberances. She gleams in the sun, the polished brass visible for miles.

The tribe of wranglers has grown, as well. Goggles are ceremoniously handed out to the new ones, while the others dance and shout to welcome them.

While the Wrangulator grows, the wranglers take a rest to let her focus on her inner workings. They know how best to tend her, and the tags will still be there when the Wrangulator is ready to work again.

The weather has taken a cold turn, and the wranglers don warmer clothes. They pull on leather caps and gloves when they have to work on the heights, so that their fingers will not freeze as they climb. One evening, Akamine-chan points to the sky and says, "Look! It's snowing."

Large, white snowflakes fall, covering the land below. They slide off the smooth sides of the Wrangulator or melt into drops on her warm pipes. The wranglers withdraw into the interior of the machine, inner rooms heated by the boilers and the pipes of hot steam.

Inkstone sees it first.

"Something strange is going on," she says, coming back from a routine check of the new fandom tags. "There was a tag without any works attached, but I could still see something there, where the works should have been. It was--it was flickering somehow. And then when I looked closer, it was gone."

"Huh. Maybe it was a bug," Jinjur says.

"No, bugs are black. And you can hear them when they scurry away. Besides, I'd have noticed if there was any gnawing on the leather bindings--we stamped out all the bugs in that section recently."

"Maybe it was a ghost," Julieann suggests in a low voice.

In broad daylight, everyone would have laughed. But in the dimly lighted room, with the cold wind whistling mournfully, the wranglers shiver and draw closer. Inkstone puts a hand on the warm wood beside her.

"I'll go with you if you want to check on it," Elke says.

"Thanks," Inkstone says.

They see nothing when they go to look at the tag again, but late that evening, when the moon shines down on the Wrangulator through tattered clouds, Alixtii and Electra climb up to look at the pairing tags.

"There, do you see that!" Electra says.

There is a flicker, seen only through the corner of their eyes, on one of the pairing tags. They back away, watching it warily.

"It's like Inkstone said--on one of the tags without works."

"I made that tag myself," Alixtii says. "I guess I hoped that if I made it, someone would write for it."

"Ha, yeah, I've done that, too. If it only worked that way." The tag trembles, and the ghostly connection to a work that isn't there vanishes again.

The sightings grow more frequent, and a pattern appears.

Works that are to come, or works that are dreamed of and yearned for, flicker among the tags like ghostly shadows. The Wrangulator is not only in this world. She is in all possible worlds, in the minds of writers whose works languish unwritten, in the minds of the wranglers who create tags in the hope of something that does not yet exist.

She sees the works, all the works, and she embraces them.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [sanctus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/46603) by [Highlander_II](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highlander_II/pseuds/Highlander_II)




End file.
